You might want to consider other parts of the country. not only are rio/SP very expensive, they are also VERY congested in the TESL market. Florianopolis is a beautiful area, or there's Natal/Recife/Forteleza in the north east.

Also, making enough cash to live on as a new private tutor is going to be very difficult for you, especially if you don't want to teach kids (a lot of the wealthy people that are going to pay for a private tutor for their kids do so in high school/middle school).

Have you considered working at a school? Other threads have mentioned Linguatec etc. but the pay for teachers in Brasil is low too (so you would probably be doing tutoring on the side anyhow.)

Do you know anyone in Brasil??? Having someone to stay with will make your life considerably easier and will also make living there for a short time more realistic. While living there I noticed that networking and connections was a huge thing. So if you know Claudia, for example, she'll hook you up with Ana (who wants to better her English). Just putting up a flyer will be slow.

probably the best EFL work in SP and Rio is doing corporates. More of this kind of work is in SP. You can check the gringoes site for jobs. The pay may sound good at first but remember SP can be expensive and you will have to travel around the city and travelling around SP can be a nightmare because of the traffic.

I belive everything is possible but in Brazil it just might take a little longer to acomplish it!

Definitely!!! Brasil is a wonderful place to live, but the OP said they wanted to go to Rio or SP for 6 months. By the time they got there and got settled it would be time to leave. Check out http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=736 and pay special attention to the part about the student visas. If you can go to Brasil to 'learn Portuguese' and teach privates on the side, that may be the easiest way to go about it. The 'policia federal' might have an issue with this though

I hate to say it, OP, but this just doesn't sound realistic. I really hope you get/find what you want, but it will be MUITO dificil!

Im currently living and teaching in Rio (see the thread I started earlier in this sub-forum for more info), and as the above posters have said, it will be difficult considering your time-frame, but surviving here is possible.

For a start I dont think you'd be teaching children in any case. Most children are either taught English as part of their classroom education, or go to one of the big chains (CNA, Cultura Inglesa, You Move, Wizard, etc etc) at the end of the school day. On a tourist visa you will not be employed by either of these routes. This leaves private work, and working for smaller independent companies that are happy to pay you under the table.

Working with said companies (as I currently do) your clients are likely to be business people or students/academics that need to improve their language skills. You are mostly likely to teach 1-to-1, or perhaps in small groups of 2-3 people max, and you will likely do your lessons at their place of work or in their homes.

The money for this isnt fantastic, but its enough to live on so long as you arent a party animal. Of course, working solely with private students is the ultimate goal that all of us gringo's aspire to, but it takes a lot of time to build up a network and your presence on the scene. As the previous poster noted its all about word of mouth, and that can take time. To generate enough private work like this will take much longer than six months if you're coming in 'green'. I know people that have reached this stage, but theyve all been in-country for around 2 years.

Ive been here a little over 3 months now and it took me the best part of 2 months just to reach a point of self-sufficiency, and only now am I starting to make a (very) modest profit. All of my work is agency based, and Im only just now starting to generate a tiny bit of interest in private tutorship.

As the old saying goes, you reap what you sow, so making business cards and flyering universities etc is definitely a good idea. Persistence and patience are very important qualities here though, just dont expect success quickly! It might sounds obvious but bring as much in the way of savings as you possibly can- you will eat into them in the first few months (unfortunately Rio/SP just aint that cheap!)

I don't really have the desire to spend 3+ months frittering away my savings until I possibly make enough money to survive in Brazil. I'd rather spend my savings on travelling for a few months than just staying put in one city if that's the case. Ah well, maybe another time.

I taught english to mainly college students in Sao Carlos, SP for a year. I saved money by renting a room in a shared apartment (republica) with college students. You can probably find private students easily in any of the smaller cities (in the state of Sao Paulo) that have a large university. The main thing is you have to get a room in a convenient location and there is no work from mid-December till after carnaval. The city of Sao Paulo is a bit more complicated cause it's so huge and there is more gringo competition for work. In Sao Carlos, I think I was the only native speaker teaching English in the whole city.

But, I found Rio de Janeiro to be the saturated job market. Everyone would love to live in Rio. It's an amazingly beautiful place.

Sao Paulo really didn't have that many English teachers. Most people want to live on a beach in Brazil, not work in a big monstrous city. Granted many people DO live and work there, but it's generally not a dreamer's first choice. So, by default, it's a bit easier to get a job there. In my opinion.